The river ran red with the remnants of the dead. The current whispered as it carried broken bodies downstream, the soft lapping of water against the banks a cruel contrast to the horror it bore. The scent of iron lingered in the air, thick and cloying, seeping into Havyn's lungs as he forced his breathing to steady.
He could still feel the thing's touch—the way its claws had burned even as they tore into his skin. The wounds throbbed, but they were shallow. The pain was nothing compared to the unease curling in his gut.
Selene stood beside him, her silver eyes locked on the river. Her hands had stopped shaking, but only because she had clenched them into fists so tight her knuckles had gone white.
Neither of them spoke.
For the first time since they had escaped the raiders, silence stretched between them—not the comfortable kind, not the sort shared by those who understood one another without words. This silence was heavy. Suffocating.
The thing at the river had vanished, but the feeling of it still clung to them, like a shadow refusing to be cast aside.
Selene finally moved, stepping toward the water. Havyn grabbed her wrist before she got too close.
"Don't," he said. His voice came out rougher than he intended.
Selene blinked, looking down at his hand. He let go immediately, but she didn't pull away.
"I wasn't going to touch it," she muttered.
Havyn narrowed his eyes. "You sure about that?"
She hesitated. "...No."
Her gaze shifted back to the river. The water rippled, dark and viscous in the moonlight. She wrapped her arms around herself.
"It spoke," she said softly. "That thing. It spoke the same way the corpse did."
Havyn exhaled sharply. "I know."
Selene tilted her head. "But you don't seem as surprised as I'd expect."
He didn't answer right away. The truth was, she was right—he wasn't as surprised as he should have been. He had felt something wrong before the thing appeared, a deep, gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach, like the land itself had been trying to warn him.
Just like it had before the creature in the woods attacked.
Just like it had before the raiders came.
The realization settled like a stone in his gut.
The Wild wasn't just whispering to him anymore. It was showing him things before they happened.
And he had no idea what it meant.
"I don't know what's happening," he admitted.
Selene studied him. "But you've felt it before."
Havyn hesitated, then nodded.
She turned her gaze back to the water, her lips pressing into a thin line. "Then we need to figure out why."
They didn't linger at the river.
Havyn led them north, moving away from the blood-tainted water and deeper into the thick canopy of the Blackthorn Wilds. The trees grew denser here, their gnarled roots twisting over the damp earth like skeletal fingers. The air was cooler, but it carried the distinct weight of something unseen watching from the shadows.
Selene stayed close behind him, unnervingly quiet.
She had barely spoken since the thing disappeared. Her usual sharp remarks, her arrogant little huffs of frustration—they were gone. She wasn't sulking. She wasn't scared.
She was calculating.
Havyn had learned to recognize it—the way her fingers twitched when she was piecing something together, the way her lips parted slightly as if tasting the air for the truth.
He should have been irritated.
Instead, he was glad.
Selene's mind was sharp. Sharper than his in ways he wasn't willing to admit. If anyone could figure out what the hell was happening to them, it was her.
The deeper they went, the more the land changed.
The trees weren't just thick here. They were unnatural.
Their trunks twisted in strange, impossible angles, bark splitting open in jagged spirals. The branches stretched toward the sky like grasping hands, but none bore leaves. Instead, the tips curled inward, gnarled like grasping claws.
Selene stopped walking. "...This isn't normal."
"No," Havyn agreed.
She turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning the crooked forest. "The trees feel… wrong."
"They're watching."
Selene stiffened at his words. She looked at him sharply. "What?"
Havyn hesitated. He hadn't meant to say that.
But the moment the words left his mouth, he knew they were true.
The trees weren't just twisted—they were aware.
The Wild pulsed beneath his feet, humming in his bones like a heartbeat out of sync with his own.
Selene took a slow step backward. "We shouldn't be here."
Havyn agreed. Every instinct in his body screamed for them to turn back.
But then—
A whisper.
Not in his mind. Not from the trees.
But ahead. In the darkness.
Selene heard it too. She tensed beside him, one hand lifting slightly, dark magic flickering at her fingertips.
The whisper came again, clearer this time.
"Come closer."
Havyn's blood ran cold.
Selene exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "Nope. Absolutely not."
But Havyn took a step forward.
Selene grabbed his arm. "Are you insane?"
He didn't answer. He didn't know why he was moving. He just was.
The voice wasn't like the one at the river. It wasn't layered, wasn't twisted and filled with malice.
It was soft.
Familiar.
He took another step.
Selene cursed under her breath. "Havyn, if you—"
Then, the trees shifted.
Not the way normal trees moved. They parted. Their roots unraveled, curling away from a narrow path that hadn't been there a moment ago.
And beyond the new opening, half-hidden in the mist, was a ruin.
An old altar.
Carved from stone, cracked and covered in moss, but still humming with a presence neither of them could ignore.
Selene swallowed. "This is a trap."
Havyn barely heard her.
His heart thundered in his chest as he stepped toward the altar, drawn by something deep, something primal, something that had been waiting.
Waiting for him.
Selene hissed through her teeth but followed. "I swear, if we get cursed again, I'm killing you myself."
Havyn barely registered her words.
The moment they stepped past the roots, the trees behind them twisted back into place—sealing them inside.
Selene let out a slow breath. "Of course."
Havyn barely noticed.
Because now, standing just before the altar, he could see it.
A marking.
A symbol etched deep into the stone—one that pulsed with the same raw energy that had been growing inside him since the night he first shifted.
And though he had never seen it before, he knew what it meant.
This was the beginning of something.
Something neither of them would walk away from unchanged.